Mozilla Internship
It’s more than time I should write something about my Mozilla Internship during this summer. Expect pictures and awesomeness.
Let’s start by explaining this a bit better. During the summer of 2014 I was an Intern at Mozilla San Francisco (and Mountain View), working with the Firefox Engineering Team.
I would love to share this experience with you, because I feel the need to spread the word about how fun and rewarding an internship like this one can be.
The City
The Bay Area is where you want to be if you are a developer. I know, you’ve heard it a hundred times, but I really have to say it again. This place breathes technology and innovation. I couldn’t expect the effect it has on your everyday live. Being part of a community of people that share the same motivations and interests. You can find daily tech meetups about pretty much any subject you would want.
It’s not anywhere you can just walk down the street and pass by companies like Github, TripAdvisor and Slack on your way to the Grocery Store.
San Francisco is also a really nice city in other aspects. It has beautiful views, awesome food and it’s full of friendly people. Working at an office just by the bay with an amazing view probably helps in admiring what the city has to offer. But be prepared for some chilly winds even during the summer and the famous city fog, that can take away the most sunny day in 5 minutes.
The Work
A lot earlier than actually getting there, I knew that working at Mozilla would be really interesting. They are one of the main reasons the web is as awesome as it is nowadays. Through Firefox and Javascript, Mozilla allows people to share their thoughts and make the web this open and democratic environment that is changing the world faster than we can keep up. All that mentioning all the projects like Webmakers or the Open Source Support Program, that are pushing people to be more and more an active part of the web.
Having a non-profit full of the smartest people working to make your life and the World a better place is something incredible.
You deal daily with really nice and open people. You do interesting work that have a direct impact on the products. The offices are really nice, with flexible hours, free snacks and drinks, places to hang out and relax, lots of happy hours.
On top of that the University Team organizes awesome events for interns and are always available to help us with any problem.
The pay is on par with the other big tech names, plane tickets and housing are paid by the company, they help us a lot with the visa procedures and we get to keep our notebooks (Macbook Pro or equivalents) at the end. We are also showered with SWAG :-). As nice as all this can be, the best part is at the end of the day knowing you’re fighting the good fight.
Oh, and have I mentioned that I had a work week in Canada? During an entire week, members of my team from all around the globe gathered at the Toronto Office to have discussions, meetings and work together. It was a really good experience and really nice to get to know everyone from the team personally.
The not-so-end
This internship was for sure a life changing experience. Getting to work with people so smart is really fruitful and with all the fun that goes together time goes fast. I made friendships that I hope I’ll carry for life.
But I can’t say it’s the end. Mozilla having this awesome open-source projects, I’ll keep being a volunteer contributor to these projects that are so important for the web environment. I support you to do the same. Contributing to open-source software make you learn a lot about programming, make you part of an amazing community and helps some really important causes.
I’ll finish by leaving you my internship presentation video.
I can say without doubt that Mozilla offers one of the most fun and valuable internships on the tech industry.
Edit: Mozilla seems to have lost the presentation video, so I replaced it with the slides.